Category Archives: Italy

Amanda Knox: Kercher family lawyer labels return to Italy ‘inappropriate’

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Knox, twice acquitted of killing Meredith Kercher, is to attend a debate on ‘trial by media’

Amanda Knox’s return to Italy has been described as “inappropriate” and “very painful” by a lawyer for the family of the murdered British student Meredith Kercher.

Knox was twice convicted and twice acquitted of killing Kercher, 21, in the home they shared in the university town of Perugia in November 2007. The body of Kercher, a student from Coulsdon, Surrey, who was in Italy on an Erasmus programme, was found under a duvet in her bedroom, partly undressed with multiple stab wounds. She had also been sexually assaulted.

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British Base jumper dies in Dolomites accident

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Jean Andre Quemener, 32, from Jersey, is killed in jump from 2,239-metre Sass Pordoi

A British Base jumper has died in an accident in the Italian Dolomites.

Jean Andre Quemener, 32, was reportedly unable to activate his wing suit after jumping from the 2,239-metre Sass Pordoi in Canazei, a mountain resort popular with Base jumpers in the Val di Fassa area.

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Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, escalates attack on judges

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Three magistrates singled out over their challenges to government’s hardline immigration policies

A simmering row over the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in Italy has erupted after the far-right interior minister publicly singled out three magistrates who have challenged his hardline anti-immigration policies.

In an escalation of his battle with the judges and the courts, Matteo Salvini said he would ask the state attorney to examine whether the magistrates should have abstained from passing verdicts in cases involving immigrants because their opinions conflict with government policy on security and immigration.

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EU could fine Italy £3bn for breaking spending and borrowing rules

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Italy’s debt amounts to 132% and servicing it costs more than annual education budget

The EU is poised to punish Italy over its “snowballing” spending and borrowing, putting Brussels on a collision course with the populist government in Rome.

In a move expected to raise tensions with Italy, the European commission paved the way for an initial fine of as much as €3.5bn (£3.1bn) on Wednesday after advising the country had met the threshold for disciplinary action.

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Italian PM’s threat to quit leaves ball in Salvini’s court

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Bickering between the League and M5S has intensified since European elections

The fate of Italy’s coalition government lies with the far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, a day after the prime minister threatened to resign if Salvini’s League and its coalition partner, the Five Star Movement (M5S), could not patch things up.

Giuseppe Conte, a law professor who was plucked from obscurity a year ago to steer the coalition, issued the ultimatum to Salvini and M5S’s Luigi Di Maio during a press conference on Monday night, urging them to set aside their many differences and “revive the spirit” of the coalition government’s early days, or seek new elections.

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Italy’s first transgender mayor says ‘kindness revolution’ can defeat far right

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Gianmarco Negri was elected in small town of Tromello, beating far-right League candidate

Italy’s first transgender mayor has said the “arrogant and oppressive” politics of the far right would sooner or later be overcome by a “kindness revolution”.

Gianmarco Negri, a 40-year-old lawyer, was elected mayor of Tromello, a small town south of Milan, last week. Capturing 37.5% of the vote, his leftwing platform scored him a clear victory over the candidate for the far-right League, who came second with 26%.

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Cruise ship crashes into tourist boat in Venice, injuring five people

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Ship strikes dock and tourist river boat on busy canal in Italian city

The mayor of Venice has said cruise ships must change their routes after a huge holiday vessel crashed into a wharf and tourist boat, injuring five people.

Luigi Brugnaro said it was no longer conceivable that cruise ships could pass through the busy Giudecca canal and called for a new route to open immediately.

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Mount Etna lights up Sicily’s night sky with eruption – video

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Mount Etna, Europe’s tallest and most active volcano, erupted on Friday, spewing lava and volcanic ash into the sky above Catania. The overnight eruptions led to rivers of lava streaming down the south-eastern slope of the Sicilian volcano. Mount Etna has seen an increase in seismic activity in recent days

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‘I had pain all over my body’: Italy’s tainted tobacco industry

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Migrants working in areas supplying Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands allege abuses including low pay and illegal contracts

Three of the world’s largest tobacco manufacturers, Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands, are buying leaves that could have been picked by exploited African migrants working in Italy’s multi-million euro industry.

Workers including children, said they were forced to work up to 12 hours a day without contracts or sufficient health and safety equipment in Campania, a region that produces more than a third of Italy’s tobacco. Some workers said they were paid about three euros an hour.

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‘It wasn’t crying wolf’: sale of whole Italian village revealed as PR hoax

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Tiny Esino Lario claimed all its assets were up for grabs – but it was actually working with a tech firm to raise awareness of issues facing villages

Last month a mountain village in northern Italy put all its assets up for sale. A website advertised that everything must go.

Street signs started at €1,250. A pilgrimage site cost around €600,000, with a 15% discount applied. The town hall was a bit cheaper – €200,000. Benches came at €280 each, but with an enticing three-for-two promotion.

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Italy’s new ruins: heritage sites being lost to neglect and looting

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Overgrown and weathered, many historical monuments are disappearing as public funds for culture fail to match modern Italy’s inheritance

Legend has it that the grotto hidden among the craggy cliffs on San Marco hill in Sutera in the heart of Sicily holds a treasure chest full of gold coins. In order to find it, three men must dream simultaneously about the precise place to dig.

Treasure or no treasure, the grotto itself is an archaeological gem, its walls adorned with a multi-coloured Byzantine-esque 16th-century fresco depicting Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saints Paulinus, Luke, Mark and Matthew.

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Fiat Chrysler proposes merger with Renault to reshape car industry

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Deal would create world’s third-largest automaker and ‘save €5bn a year’ by sharing research

Fiat Chrysler has proposed a merger with France’s Renault that would create the world’s third-largest carmaker and save billions needed to invest in the race to make electric and autonomous vehicles.

The merged company would produce 8.7m vehicles annually and save €5bn ($5.6bn or £4.4bn) each year by sharing research, purchasing and other activities, according to a statement released by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). It said the deal would involve no plant closures but did not address potential job cuts.

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Final votes cast as EU awaits parliamentary election results

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France, Germany, Italy and others go to polls on Sunday, with gains expected for nationalist parties

The western world’s largest democratic exercise is nearing its finale as tens of millions of EU citizens in 21 countries go to the polls on Sunday, the last of four days of voting in European parliament elections that will shape the bloc’s future.

Polls suggest the vote will produce a more fragmented parliament than ever before, with the two centre-right and centre-left groups that have dominated Europe’s politics forecast to lose their joint majority for the first time, and nationalist and populist forces to make gains.

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Venezuela’s ambassador to Italy resigns, blaming government’s lack of money

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Isaías Rodríguez says US sanctions against Caracas means he cannot afford to carry out his duties

The Venezuelan ambassador to Italy has resigned, saying his government’s financial difficulties have made his job impossible.

In a letter addressed directly to President Nicolás Maduro and posted on Twitter, Ambassador Isaías Rodríguez reiterated his “immense respect for Maduro’s battle” but insisted the sanctions imposed by the US mean he cannot carry out his duties.

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Teacher suspended after her pupils criticise Italian far-right law

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Schoolchildren’s video presentation compared Salvini decree to 1930s racial laws

An Italian teacher has been suspended over a video made by her students that compared a security law drafted by Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, to Mussolini’s racial laws, provoking a storm of protest against her suspension across the country.

Rosa Maria Dell’Aria was last week suspended for 15 days on half pay after an investigation by the education ministry’s provincial authority in Palermo found she had not “supervised” her students’ work.

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Europe’s far-right leaders unite with a vow to ‘change history’

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Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen are joining with allies to create what may be the third-largest bloc in the European parliament

Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini led a rally of his European far-right allies in front of Milan’s Gothic cathedral on Saturday. He pledged to change history after this week’s EU elections by making the populist alliance one of the largest groupings in the European parliament.

Flanked by France’s Marine Le Pen and leaders from nine other nationalist parties, Salvini began his speech to the packed Piazza del Duomo by quoting the British writer GK Chesterton: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him but because he loves what is behind him.” He added that his group would remould Europe “not for our sake, but for our children”.

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Goodbye to Gomorrah: the end of Italy’s most notorious housing estate

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Famous as the setting for the hit film and TV series Gomorrah, the towers of Le Vele became synonymous with poverty and organised crime – until residents took charge

“When I think of my life in Le Vele, my skin crawls with rage,” says Omero Benfenati.

He looks out from a dark, narrow passageway framed by suspended steel stairways that block the natural light and lead up to abandoned apartments. Most of the windows are bricked up, and liquid leaks from split pipes on to the sewage and refuse-strewn asphalt several storeys below.

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‘Not a statesman’: Matteo Salvini – the Zelig of Italian politics

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League head attempts to burnish his credentials as leader of Europe’s far-right with home-turf rally

Nino Governale was the perfect target for the teenage Matteo Salvini. The PE teacher hailed from Sicily and could hardly get through the weekly lesson at the prestigious Alessandro Manzoni high school in Milan without being goaded by his pupil.

“Salvini was as arrogant at 14 as he is today,” Governale says. “His favourite game was to antagonise. At that time he was against all southerners – we were the enemies coming to Milan and stealing jobs.”

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Divine intervention: Vatican aide defies police to restore power to homeless shelter

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Pope Francis aide crawls into manhole to return power for hundreds of homeless in unused state-owned building

An aide to pope Francis has shimmied down a Rome manhole in order to restore electricity for hundreds of homeless people living in an unused state-owned building.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski broke a police seal to turn the electricity back on on Saturday evening in the building where 450 people, including about 100 children, had been living without lights or hot water since 6 May, according to Italian news reports

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